One power semiconductor device is known from the document US 2003/0162330 A1. In the case of the known power semiconductor device including a power semiconductor chip, however, there is no large-area electrode provided on the top side of the power semiconductor chip, rather said large-area electrode is divided into contact strips. The contact strips of the surface electrode are connected via bonding wires to a busbar, which, for its part, is arranged on an insulated base and merges into a lead frame. The large-area rear side electrode is fixed directly on a chip island of a lead frame and is electrically connected to an external lead.
One disadvantage of this power semiconductor device is that the surface electrode is divided into narrow strips, which, for their part, merge into bonding wires. This has the disadvantage that the permissible current loading is limited by the sum of the cross sections of the bonding wires. Consequently, the current has to be limited depending on the diameters of the bonding wires in order to prevent the bonding wires of the power semiconductor device from being melted through.
The document DE 104 23 648 discloses a sensor device including a freely accessible sensor region, the sensor region of which is connected to corresponding contact pads on a substrate via connecting lines, in which case these connecting lines may be either bonding tapes, bonding wires or flat cables.
In order to apply this solution to a power semiconductor device, the cross sections of the bonding tapes have to be increased in such a way that a reliable bonding connection cannot be ensured on account of the thickness then required for the bonding tapes.
If a plurality of bonding wires are used for the power semiconductor device, these limit the maximum possible current or the maximum possible current loading through the power semiconductor device, as is already known from the document US 2003/01623301 A1. Finally, there are also solutions in which flat cables connect the large-area electrode to corresponding wide contact pads of an internal lead. However, these relatively flat cables also exhibit the problem of producing a reliable, cohesive connection to the large-area top side electrode.